Silent Witness was a relentlessly grim rummage among the corpses

Did we really need another tale of a sexually motivated male monster for Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox) to investigate? (Picture: BBC/Robert Viglasky)

Silent Witness (BBC1) shifted location to Scotland and a particularly grubby lap-dancing club but there was no shifting away from the deathly grey pallor that stalks this relentlessly grim rummage among the corpses.

Oh for a little light to contrast with the baleful shade into which Silent Witness inexorably plunges us.

Now I’m not suggesting that murder is ever going to be a barrel of laughs, but Silent Witness piles on the misery with such monotony that, after a while, it all turns into a kind of deathly white noise.

Do we really need another story about a sexually motivated male monster who preys on women, leaving their dead bodies stacked up in a forest?

Women as victims of violent crime has become the default position of Silent Witness and its crime drama ilk and, however much the lead characters exhibit their moral outrage at what they’re investigating, it smacks of cheap and nasty exploitation.